The black hole of Guantanamo

[phantom power]

The paradox of Guantanamo has always been that it’s been invisible to so many Americans, and yet the only thing the rest of the world sees. The whole point of the prison camp there was to create a legal black hole. We’ve fished our wish: The world sees only blackness; we see only a hole.

That’s always been the challenge of Guantanamo: making it seem real to Americans who have tended to think of the Cuban camp as the potted palm in the war on terror. And it’s very difficult to get exercised over a potted palm.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2012/01/what_we_might_want_to_remember_about_forgetting_on_the_10th_anniversary_of_the_prison_camp_at_guantanamo.html

I suspect that is largely because Americans live in a country with nearly 2 million people behind bars, many of them innocent, all of them subject to a system so byzantine and unfairly applied that "justice" has become a remote abstraction. We have jails everywhere, for everything, from the local hoosegow to country lock-ups to state prisons, federal penitentiaries and military brigs. Oh, plus the various holding facilities, psychiatric lock-ups and juvenile and immigration detention centers.

We are a nation of prisons. I just don't think most Americans find it all that remarkable that a particular group of prisoners are caught in some kind of legal limbo. It happens every day to one extent or another. I'm not excusing it --- it's a blight on our country and we should all be ashamed. But I think that's why Guantanamo is just another a potted palm. Americans can't see the palm forest for the trees.

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/black-hole-of-guantanamo.html

[zipplewrath]

1. No constituency

Both parties have been more than willing to support large prison populations. All without any justification or demonstratino that anything is being accomplished. With respect to Gitmo specifically, both parties have shown a desire to keep it open and operating indefinitely, despite both presidential candidates in the last election advocating its termination.

If prisons were considered a social program, the GOP would have shut them down a decade ago.

[DrDan]

2. we need to rethink imprisonment in this country

We need to make more use of ankle-bracelets and house-arrests for non-violent criminals. Costs can be reduced, those convicted can maintain a more stable life while serving sentences, even work-at-home is possible.

Use prisons for violent criminals - those that need to be segregated from society.

The technology is there - or nearly there.